


Sunday Lunch

by Story_V



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:26:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Story_V/pseuds/Story_V
Summary: "A Sunday lunch, what good would it do? She would prepare a proper roast with nicely mashed potatoes, and he would be sitting there by the table all ready for the meal, and then she would receive a text from Andy with a lame excuse for not to come. Because Andy was a lame excuse, always had been. And then he would have to comfort Victoria and lie to her, that it was going to be okay, when they all just knew there was no way their family was ever going to be okay again. Alright, Robert knew he had some part of the blame, yes, but not all of it. Andy had always been a martyr, always had loved playing the victim card, always had been the one who was holding on to the past with two hands, and wouldn’t give up of it even for his own miserable life. "
Victoria has asked both of her brothers to join her for a family meal. Neither Andy or Robert think it is a good idea.  To sit next to each other and have a civilized conversation, how could that happen?
Or the one, where they go through their emotions about the past months and their lives in general. About being brothers, about growing up, about families, Robert coming out and about Katie.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> I love the Sugden brothers, I think their story is the most iconic story in Emmerdale, so I wanted to write my first fan fiction about them. English isn't my native language as you can easily tell, but I hope this will still be readable. Please comment and leave kudos, that will make me happy!

**Andy.**

The Sunday lunch at Victoria’s, that was the plan for today. Just you, me and Robert, she had said casually, and don’t even think you can make an excuse for not to come. She had looked at Andy with her big brown puppy eyes, and looked so much like their mother, Sarah, that Andy had had to promise he would come, even though he had regretted the words the second they came out of his mouth. She was a good cook, Andy gave her that, and a good company even. He always enjoyed being with his little sister, but the combination for the lunch included his brother too, and Andy wasn’t sure, if there was enough water under the bridges yet.

 

Pretty eyes, but a mouth full of lies. That’s what Chas had said about Robert months ago and it still echoed in Andy’s head when he was getting dressed for the lunch at his cottage. His brother sure had pretty eyes and good looks that everybody kept falling for, but nobody knew better than Andy, what a spiteful twister Robert was by heart. Everything Robert touched got broken, everybody who got into his way eventually got hurt. Had he ever hurt anyone as bad as he had hurt Andy, he didn’t know, but if there was anyone who could go further on the lengths of hurting people, Robert would be the one, and that’s why he had thought he needed to stop him. That’s why he had made the deal with Ross, the only reason. Yes he had been hurt and yes he had been suffering in pain after finding the truth about Katie’s death, but yet the only reason to agree going on with Ross’ plan, was that he had felt he had the responsibility of stopping Robert. He had always felt responsible for Robert’s actions, the guilt about Sarah’s death never went away and he had always felt like he had to pay for it by letting Robert get away with things he did. Until Katie died, that was.

 

But did it get any better? No, Andy thought while putting the shoes on. Got it worse, yes. Letting Ross shoot Robert was the worst mistake Andy ever did, even though he knew Robert deserved it. But looking into Victoria’s or Diane’s eyes afterwards, hearing mum and dad’s disappointed voices in his head, those were the toughest moments of Andy’s life. Even the pain of Katie’s death hadn’t felt that awful, because of that he couldn’t feel guilt. At least he was free of it, and Lord knew he couldn’t have taken anymore guilt in his heart. At the hospital he had said he wanted Robert to die, but inside of him there was this little part which only wished Robert to heal and get better. He had tried to silence the part, but the image of his brother lying helplessly and so alone in the hospital bed didn’t go away, and Andy couldn’t help but feeling sorry for him. Sorry for him, was it really him he had felt that warmth towards, or the boy he had been, Andy thought now. The boy, who had introduced Andy to his parents and acclaimed they needed to adopt Andy. The man who had lied in the hospital bed out of conscious, with a bullet hole in his chest, had the same golden blonde hair as the boy, who had once taken Andy under his arm and made his parents give him a home. The only home Andy had ever really had.

 

He should’ve known Robert would heal. Only the good die young, so they say, and Robert wasn’t any good. He made a full recovery and Victoria made him move in with them. She said she wanted to have both of her brothers living with her, but how could’ve Andy managed that? There was no way they could have lived under the same roof, so he had moved out. In a way he felt like Vic had chosen Robert over him, but given the fact Robert only got shot because of him, he couldn’t really argue. He wouldn’t anyway. Unlike Robert, Andy was able to regret things he had done. What he regretted the most was that Aaron was the one who got blamed for the shooting. Amount of guilt in Andy’s life started to be unbearable, so in a way he was glad that Robert found out the truth, and things escalated with crashing the cars in the chicken run, and both of them ending up in the hospital. At least they knew where they stood, and at least Robert had found a way of helping Aaron out of the custody.

 

Aaron. Andy still couldn’t understand the whole thing. Him and Robert.

 

As long as Andy could remember, Robert had been the one all the girls loved. Robert had been the one who could pick them like flowers, choose anyone he wanted. Robert had used them, lied to them, cheated on them, and still they had favoured him. Even Katie had. The young and the mature, they all had fallen into his charm. Pretty eyes but a mouth full of lies, well said Chas, well said. Robert had stolen two women of his brother’s life, Katie and Debbie, and had felt no sorry for it at all. He had not once apologised, nor felt remorse, mere laughed about it. Things with Debbie ended badly, surely, it ended up with Max dying and Jack sending Robert away, but that didn’t seem to have changed anything for Robert. When he came back years later, he had only gotten more arrogant, more spiteful and bitter. And engaged. To a beautiful woman with a rich daddy. Engaged to a life of wealthy and power, something Jack Sugden had never been able to offer to his family, and something Andy knew Robert had always longed. And Robert had let it all fall from his fingers, right after he had gotten it. For Aaron. Aaron fucking Livesy, or Dingle, or whatever name he used now days. How could that be understood, given the background Andy knew. He had no idea. Firstly, Aaron was a male. Secondly, he was a common, even poor male, who lived with his mother above a pub and worked in a scrapyard, and couldn’t offer any luxuries Robert had always been after. Victoria kept telling everybody who would listen, that this thing Robert had with Aaron was called love, that Robert really, really loved Aaron, but could Robert really love anyone beside himself? He was the most selfish human being ever exist, one who always put himself first and only cared about the others if he could achieve something from it. Andy felt the anger rising inside him when he thought about it, things Robert had ruined for him, and yet again there came that small voice, that whispered that if it wasn’t for Robert in the first place, he wouldn’t have gotten the Sugdens as a family, he wouldn’t had gotten anything.

 

Andy stood in front of the mirror in the small hallway of his keeper’s cottage. Lately he had aged a lot in the face but who could wonder that. So much had happened. Months had passed since the shooting, Debbie and the kids were still in an awol, there had been the Gordon case that had shocked everyone, and Chrissie and Robert had gotten their divorce. The bastard had married the poor woman, had kept cheating on her the whole time with his gay lover and still in the divorce gotten so much money Andy couldn’t even believe it. Talk about gold diggers, he thought disgustedly. And during these months he himself had fallen for Chrissie, and yes, he was able to see the irony in that. Chrissie had switched one brother to another, the businessman to the gamekeeper, who, like Aaron, had nothing to offer. But Chrissie seemed to be okay with that.

 

To Andy, Chrissie was a complex. Andy had always preferred the simple life. Simple life with someone, who had the same values, who didn’t need the drama, and enjoyed the farm life with a nice cup of tea. Chrissie was nothing like that: she lived for the drama, although she claimed she didn’t. But if there wasn’t a drama, she would create it, and not with the tea, it was always the most expensive wines and whiskeys. But she was warm, at least sometimes, she was funny, when she wasn’t being dramatic, and she was beautiful. And a woman. Very much a woman. Who had lost a husband to a man, so she kind of felt like she had something to prove. And Andy wasn’t going to whine about that. And if he was being honest, -only to himself as he would never admit this to anyone-, he did feel a bit of a pride filling the place of his brother and satisfying the woman in a ways Robert had failed. If he truly was being honest, that almost felt like a payback, and he took the joy of it.

 

This wasn’t going to be the first time they would spend time together after the chicken run. They had managed to act civilised at Victoria’s birthday and sure, they popped into each other every once in a while. It was a small village, there was no way of avoiding each other endlessly. But Victoria’s birthday party had been in the Woolpack, which was a public place and therefore easier. There had been other people too. This time it would be only them three, as Victoria had said that even Adam wouldn’t be there, so it was going to be just them Sugdens. The Sugdens, the great Sugdens. Two brothers and their little sister having a nice Sunday lunch, just like their parents would have liked it. At the thought of their parents, Andy felt the panic rising. His breathing got fast shallow and he lost the view in front of him. Instead there came images to his head, images he had tried to forget but which would never leave him alone. Images that came along always when they weren’t needed. There was a barn in fire, Robert and Katie sleeping together, Max bleeding to death, Debbie giving baby Sarah away, Jack dying, Victoria falling through the ice, Katie dying, Robert getting shot, Robert lying in the hospital, Robert saving him from the burning car, Robert shouting, Robert crying, Robert promising to keep quiet about… Andy had to sit down on the floor, bury his head to his hands and breathe heavily. The room slowly stopped spinning but he still felt like vomiting.

 

Where did all this begin and where is it going to end?

He couldn’t just yet get up, it was all too much. His body felt so heavy he couldn’t carry it.

 

 

 

**Robert.**

 

 

Robert looked himself in the mirror in his room with a gloomy expression. He loved his little sister with all his heart, but she was so fucking naive. A Sunday lunch, what good would it do? She would prepare a proper roast with nicely mashed potatoes, and he would be sitting there by the table all ready for the meal, and then she would receive a text from Andy with a lame excuse for not to come. Because Andy was a lame excuse, always had been. And then he would have to comfort Victoria and lie to her, that it was going to be okay, when they all just knew there was no way their family was ever going to be okay again. Alright, Robert knew he had some part of the blame, yes, but not all of it. Andy had always been a martyr, always had loved playing the victim card, always had been the one who was holding on to the past with two hands and wouldn’t give up of it even for his own miserable life.

 

And talk about victims, when Andy was the one who had arranged Ross to shoot him! He had lied in a coma for ages and had Andy even apologised for it? No. And had he, Robert, offered Andy a hand and asked if they could leave the past behind? Yes. And then what he does? Starts dating Chrissie! The expression on Robert’s face sunk even gloomier at the thought of Chrissie and Andy together. Okay, he figured there was a pun, he had kind of… stolen Katie from Andy once, but that was ages ago, they were still teenagers back then. And they got back together, didn’t they? And that thing with Debbie wasn’t even serious, and anyway, Andy didn’t even care about her. But Robert had been married to Chrissie. That had been an adult marriage for god’s sake, you don’t go dating your brother’s ex-wife of adult age, you just don’t. You just don’t go stealing his old life and pretend you’re somehow a better person, because you’re boring and poor. Robert buttoned the buttons of his shirt with angry hand movements and stopped suddenly when he got to the middle of his chest area. There it was, still red and a bit swollen, the scar from the operation where they had removed the bullet from his chest. The scar that had burnt like hell for several months of his life. The scar that had marked him forever, the scar that still gave him nightmares and got him waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat.

 

What a pair they were, him and Aaron. Both had fucking nightmares, both sweated the sheets dirty and wept in the nights. Adam had no idea, the snoring bastard slept through the nights so tightly, but Victoria knew. Robert owned so much to Victoria, who, in the first months, had sat night after night beside him, and had never mentioned about it during days. He couldn’t have made it through without her. Days had been easy for a long time now, but nights, they were still a struggle. And now that Aaron occasionally slept here too… Well, he really just slept. Aaron had way more scars than Robert did, both physically and emotionally, and they had agreed to take things slowly. No one would believe they really took things slowly, but at the moment it was just enough to have someone beside you in the bed. So that when you woke up in the night shivering with horror, there was someone holding you, calming you down and caressing you back to sleep. And Aaron had strong arms, he held tightly, just like Robert liked to be held. The way Chrissie had never held him, or anyone else. Any woman. And holding Aaron was also good. Different, but good.

 

It was still so new to him. Not being in a relationship, he had had them. He’d even been married, for fuck’s sake. But being in a relationship with a man, and not just with any man, but with someone as complicated as Aaron. He could easily understand why everyone was so suspicious about them, about him being serious about Aaron. Things he had done while trying to deny his feelings for Aaron, some of them were so bad they were actually one of the reasons he had those nightmares.

 

He had been so scared for so long. Of exposing. And what would happen after that. How people would react. And now, when all that was behind, those fears felt absurd, ridiculous even. Because in the end, everything had come down surprisingly easy. Some bridges were burnt, some people had turned their backs on him, some doors had closed, but at the same time the amount of support from some others had overwhelmed him. But, Robert thought, if one had never experienced anything like that, there was no way they could understand how it felt to be afraid of your own feelings. And had his brother ever experienced anything like that, nope, he hadn’t.

 

The way Robert saw it, Andy had always had it easy and simple. He found a girl when he was still in the school, and loved her until the day she died, and probably loved her even ever after. And made a few kids along the road with some other bird, but that was just a twist in the plot. Simple Andy, always the reliable one. Easy one, the unproblematic. Words people had used to describe Robert were usually ones like reckless, twisted, prodigal, or loose cannon. Oh, they had no idea, no fucking idea.

 

Robert finished the buttons of his shirt and tucked the hem in his jeans, and looked himself in the mirror properly. Andy was so short, like a midget really, Robert instead had long legs like his dad. Long legs, long torso, long limbs everywhere. Diane kept saying he looked like Jack in the old photos, but how would she know, she wasn’t there when Jack was young, and there were only a few shitty pictures of him in his ‘70s costumes to prove Jack hadn’t always been wearing that depressing coat. Those were the pictures grandma Annie had given to Robert. He had them in the slim album where there were also pictures of his mum Pat holding him as a baby, photo of a coffin at his mum’s funeral, his brother Jackie and Kathy’s wedding picture, and a photo from Jackie’s funeral. Such a dooming family album. He had no memory of his big brother, neither of his older sister Sandy. Robert remembered the picture of Sandy, the half-sister he had from his biological mother Pat. Sandy had a strong jawline and wild hair that wouldn’t stay in its place, just like he had. If he had understood it right she had caused a few juicy scandals in the village at her time. Was she even alive now, he didn’t know. He had never bothered to find out. The past was in the past, and the past was not all nice. First years of his life he had been drifting in sorrow after sorrow with his dad, surrounded by mainly adults.

 

Happier times had followed when Sarah had appeared into Jack’s life, yes, Robert could remember them laughing and joking around. The three of them had lived with Annie, uncle Joe and Kate, and Kate’s kids Rachel and Mark. Bonding with Sarah, creating a mother-son relationship: that happened during those years, and it didn’t break even when Sarah got a baby of her own, Victoria. Robert had always been fond of Victoria, right from the start. They were a little family, them four.

 

Victoria was tiny and dark haired like Andy, Robert stood tall and blonde between them, which was weird, because Andy wasn’t related to them by blood, and yet it was him, Robert, who stood out of the picture. How many times Robert had wished he had never taken Andy to the Sugdens back in the days, how many times he had wished he had never taken the pity over the sad creature Andy was, when he was abandoned by his criminal father. How things would have been different if he hadn’t.

 

But how happy had he been, when he had gotten a friend of his own age. After years of being isolated at the farm -farm, which he had always, always hated-, having a company of own age had felt so liberating. And how demanding had he been, when he had made his parents promise they would take Andy to live with them, he hadn’t left them any other choices but agreeing. And Andy became a brother, first emotionally, then legally. They were always together. Andy was few months older, but shy and awkward, easy to lead. Robert was the clever one, the brain behind the ideas. The way it still is, Robert grinned himself in the mirror.

 

First he hadn’t wanted to return back to the village. He had had to put a show of himself to cover up how terrified he was to be back. He found his arrogant act hilarious, winding people up was so easy. Victoria and Diane saw through it though, but Diane was like the closest thing to a mum he had anyway, and Vic had always been almost as smart as Robert himself, so no surprises there. But Andy and Katie both fell for it. If it wasn’t sad really, it would’ve been funny. And what made it sad, was that no matter how hard he tried to behave like a decent person, only offensive words dropped out of his mouth. He couldn’t understand why he behaved like that, when really he had missed them both like hell, but being around them immediately turned his nasty side on top. They made it so easy. Katie was so defensive and bitchy, maybe because she had to proof Andy she didn’t have any feelings left for Robert. She showed her nails and Robert bit back, and that’s how it went from there. Like a snowball: he couldn’t hold it back since it started rolling. But yet still, he hadn’t felt so alive for years. He was back home, in the place he had loathed, among the people he had looked down to, but it felt like home anyway. The best place.

 

And what had been the best thing about being back to the village, was the fact that he didn’t have to live with shit smelling animals anymore. No, he moved to the Home Farm with his fiancee and her family. Okay, living with Lawrence and Lachlan was like a torture even at its best, but the advantages of living with Chrissie in other ways made it worth it. Yes, he had heard people talking about him and how he had used Chrissie only for her money. Looked like it, didn’t it? He saw it too, but unlike most people, he also knew that it wasn’t true. Chrissie was a bit older than him, already a divorcée and yes, he had flirted with her to get a better career option in her dad’s company. But then he had genuinely fallen for her, the feelings he had for her had been real, there was no faking. He had wanted to marry her for her, not for the money. The money was just a nice bonus on top of things. No whining about that. And it’s not like he wanted to fall in love with Aaron, in fact he did everything he could to not to.

 

He really had done everything he could to not fall in love with Aaron. The memory of Katie falling through the floor emerged into Robert’s head. He had to put his hand to his chest as he felt the cold squeezing feeling in his heart, while in his memory he saw Katie falling to her death. Her eyes staring empty, hair and face covered in the dust. Every time he thought about Katie dying, he felt his scar aching. And that happened many times a day and still he wasn’t used to it. Every time it blocked his breathing for a short while, every time he felt like falling to the black hole where all the light and warmth were gone from his life for forever. He had learned his way to deal with it when it happened. He closed his eyes, breathed in slowly and thought about mum, Victoria, Aaron. It always passed, Robert had trained himself an expert at blocking difficult things out of his conscious mind. I’ll think about them later, he usually told himself. But now, still standing in front of his mirror, getting ready for the lunch with his siblings: with the brother, whose wife had died because of Robert, and who had arranged someone to shoot him to death in revenge, and with a sister, who blissfully had no idea about any of this. A sister, who naively thought her brothers didn’t get along because of how Robert had treated Chrissie, and turned out to be gay, bisexual, whatever - no, at this moment he felt like he simply couldn’t do this.

 

 

 

 

**Andy.**

 

Andy sat on the floor in his hallway with his back leaning on the cold wall behind him. His eyes were closed and he was concentrated in his breathing. The memory lane in his head started fading with his efforts to stay in the presence, be in the moment, right there and now. On the floor, this day, this hour, now. Once again he thought how much easier it would make his life if he could just leave the past in the past. He had gone through the therapy, both for his anger issues and for the grief about losing Katie, and though it had helped a lot, there was still so much to work through. Somehow he envied Robert for his ability to just move on. But by now Andy knew that dealing with issues was better than blocking them, so he didn’t actually wish he could just drop everything standing there, but if only he had Robert’s verbality, the ability to express his thoughts and solve them through. Then he could move on too.

 

Robert had always been good with words. He could spit his spite in the most hurtful ways, always find the way to hit where it hurted. The damage he was able to do with words was amazing, if you looked at it like that, it was almost like an art. Andy himself had always been the physical type. If he felt he was pushed to the corner he would punch, as it was the only thing he had ever learned from his real dad. Took him long to get rid of that behaviour, took several relationships and a marriage before he realised he needed to start working with his issues. The trouble was that he didn’t want to go through the past, but the past was always thrown in front of him and he couldn’t escape it. Just when he had started to have faith in the future, Robert had occured to be back to the village, and started mirroring the past back to his face. And at the same time Robert would make fun of him being the one, who couldn’t let go.

 

Robert moved so fast that Andy didn’t have the space to respond, he had felt paralyzed as Robert took over his life once again. Katie had became obsessed by Robert, Lawrence had tried to affect him and then, despite everything, for a short while he had felt happiness for having his brother back. It was difficult to describe it, but somehow everything felt right when Robert was there. Andy didn’t like his behaviour but in a sense of Robert belonging there it felt right. Robert was constantly everywhere, he filled the spaces around Andy, but somehow that also gave him peace. Like a piece of him had been missing and now it was found, the piece of him that he didn’t even like, but it was still a piece of him. Andy knew it didn’t make sense, as he had tried to explain it to Katie. Even though he knew Robert was playing a trick when he had asked Andy to be his best man to his wedding to Chrissie, he had had high hopes that everything would settle in the end. For a moment they both had felt the familiar connection between them, looking into one another’s eyes and knowing they shared so much history that they knew what the other one was thinking. That was worth to try, wasn’t it?

 

Andy had thought about Katie’s death a lot. Of course he had. Before and after finding out Robert had been there when it had happened, and that Robert had pushed Katie. After the realisation he had firstly thought Robert had murdered Katie. The picture in his head played Robert choosing carefully the place where the floor would crash down the easiest, plan an unmerciful plot to get her to come there in the first place, viciously shoving Katie in her death, and then enjoy the cruelty of framing it as an accident.

 

After the time had passed. Yes. After the time had passed, after the shooting and everything, the pictures had changed slightly. The more he had found out about the events, the more he had thought about things that had happened before the actual events, yes, he had seen, that there was no way Robert had known Katie was going to come there. So no plotting then.

 

Katie had been obsessed to find out who Robert was cheating Chrissie with, and Aaron, who had felt hurt and betrayed, had wanted to hurt and betray Robert the same way, and had asked Katie to come to the barn. Aaron had made a scene about him and Robert kissing, and then left Katie to parade her victory over Robert with the person himself. Even though Andy didn’t want to think bad thoughts about his beloved late wife, he had to admit Katie could be cruel. Yes, he could see that Katie would let Robert to know she would do everything in her powers to ruin Robert’s relationship with Chrissie now that she had the evidence. And every other relationship, starting with Lawrence. And life in general, the business and the rest. That’s what she would have done, Andy knew that. And Andy already knew his brother. Andy had beaten his ex-wife Jo, he knew how he had reacted when he had felt threaten. But Robert wasn’t like that. He had never been like that. Robert surely would have attacked, but mere by words. He would have manipulated, he would have tried to twist things, but he couldn’t have hit her. So if Robert says he only just pushed Katie while trying to get the phone off her, and the floor just happened to collapse under her causing her death, Andy had to admit to himself that Robert was telling the truth there. It didn’t make it okay though. It didn’t change much. Robert had still lied about pretty much everything. But Andy could see, that it had to be an accident, there was no intention behind it, and that helped a bit.

 

The night on Katie’s funeral, when he had wanted to kill himself, Robert had found him. Him and Aaron. Robert had talked him over, and at the time Andy had felt sincerity in his speech. They had gotten so much closer then, Robert had guided Andy through the darkest paths. Guess it was only the guilt speaking though, the guilt about causing his grief. But Robert wasn’t suppose to be able to feel guilt, or was he?

 

There were few moments in the recent past, when just for a short moment he had felt like he just wanted to forget everything and continue his life as if nothing ever happened. Like in the hospital after the chicken run, when Robert had said that no matter either of them did, he was still his brother and he couldn’t leave, because that’s where he belonged to, and despite not wanting to, he had felt that too. He had felt that too, because he was too tired to feel anything else, and the anger wore him out. And again in the hospital, this time beside Diane’s bed after she had had her cancer diagnosis, they had all felt the family connection between them. Because no one could understand how it felt, no one else had lived through their experiences of losing parents like they had. And although Andy still wasn’t sure that Robert could love someone like he claimed to love Aaron, he knew in his heart that his brother loved Diane and Victoria truly and deeply. At least that was something they both shared.

 

But to let go would mean forgiving.

 

Or at least accepting.

 

And to accept he would have to accept his own doings. And to forgive himself too. And that would almost be like acknowledging that he has had a part in this game. That he can’t just blame everything on Robert. And that Katie had played a part too. And that there was an accident. A terrible accident. Like in life there just is accidents sometimes. Like barn fires.

 

But to accept all that would mean taking a responsibility. About the past, surely, but about the future also. About having the will to break the circle. And while lying on the floor in his hallway Andy wasn’t so sure about it. It’s easy to ask, would it hurt to try, but when you know it sure could hurt you even more, it’s not so easy to answer.

 

Andy put the question in other words: would it be so bad to attend a lunch over Victoria’s? Could he let down his sister, who he knew had worked hard for the Sunday roast? These were easier questions to answer and Andy slowly got up from the floor.

 

 

 

 

**Robert**.

 

 

Robert came downstairs to the kitchen. He stopped at the door to look at his sister, who had red cheeks from the heat of the oven, who was busy preparing the perfect Sunday lunch, who was all nerves and all love and all ready to break down if there would be even a minor let down by either one of her brothers. Victoria couldn’t see Robert and he liked to have an opportunity to just admire his sister in silence. She really was the best human being ever. She hadn’t had it easy either, but her nature was so much more positive than Robert’s or Andy’s. There was no bitterness or holding back in her acts. She was strong and independent, and quite mature for her age. Actually, Robert came to think, she probably was the most mature of them. And still he and Andy treated her like a child. Robert felt ashamed when he remembered how he had tried to prevent Victoria and Adam getting married. Back then he hadn’t liked Adam, but that was mostly because he was jealous of the bond Adam and Aaron shared, he was willing to admit it now. Adam had messed with Vanessa, but Robert shouldn’t have interrupted his and Victoria’s relationship but trust that her sister could work out her own feelings by herself. Like she had. He should have trusted her like she trusted her brother. Yes, he learned a lesson there.

 

Robert had heard people saying that Aaron had made him a better person. Sure, Aaron had. But even more had Victoria affected on him. The kindness in her, the ability to see good in him when the others couldn’t see anything but trouble in him, was priceless. Victoria was his family and if Victoria wanted to include Andy in that family too, Robert was willing to give it one more shot. Shot. The pun, once again. It was all a bit absurd and ridiculous, if you really thought about it. Normal families never had anything like that in their history. With the Sugdens, there was life at its fullest serving: think anything bad that could happen, they’ve had it. And still they were here, still trying to find a way out, still trying to build a future for themselves. If there was one thing you could say about them, it was that none of them were quitters. They were fighters.

 

If he hadn’t ever got a brother like Andy, had he learned to fight for himself? Robert had been an artistic kid living in the farm with a father, who didn’t approve his son’s characteristics. Either he had given up and accepted to continue his dad’s farming, turned his true self down, or left the village on the first opportunity and never come back. Neither of the options sounded good to Robert, they were quitter’s choices. He didn’t left the village because he wanted to, but because he was told to. By his dad. Who favoured his brother, who liked the farming and his dad’s values in general. Yes, jealousy had been an issue. But jealousy had taught him to fight for his rights.

 

And Andy had been so soft. If Robert hadn’t picked on him, what would he gotten up to? Okay, enough was enough, he had crossed the line a few times, but still. Even then when he first arrived back to Emmerdale and started irritating Andy, he had felt tenderness towards him. Robert couldn’t put it into words exactly, but somehow him being nasty to Andy was also loving him. Provoking Andy to take control and not to let Robert walk over him. Be his equal. Be the wall behind Robert’s back. Be the one Robert couldn’t push around, be the one who would show him his place.

 

No one ever did, not since dad.

 

Lawrence was a sad joke, Cain was a bully, but who could take Cain seriously? Ross: all violence, no brain. In a ways no one else ever was, Andy was his match.

 

Aaron played tough and hard, but even from the beginning there had always been caring and gentleness in the ways they were together. Sounded silly, Robert thought, giving all the roughness Aaron had shown to him while they fought, but that was not what he meant. Aaron wanted to love and be loved just as much as he wanted. If he’d wanted, he could’ve pushed Aaron over the edge so easily, he almost had even done it, and had regretted it ever since. But that’s what you do, when you’re Robert Sugden. You just can’t not push people’s buttons, they always let you do it. The only one who’s ever really resisted him had been Andy. His brother.

 

The prodigal sons of Jack.

 

It was always a battle of wills between them. They both had said they wanted it to stop, but it was so deep in their characters that they didn’t know how to stop it. And honestly Robert didn’t want to stop it, he wanted to be stopped. He wanted someone to be strong enough to take the control away from him, make him kneel down and give a chance to start over. Shooting had been a bit extreme, but yeah, it was a try. They were breaking each other piece by piece, showing the ugliness underneath. He was fighting Andy like he had wanted to fight Jack, he wasn’t stupid, he realised that. He had wanted to fight his dad, had wanted him to really see his son in the way he was, and accept him. Be accepted, not to be sent away. The layers of ugliness in Robert needed to be ripped, he had built them for years out of rage and bitterness, and he was tired of them. If Andy could be strong enough to break him, who’d be strong enough to collect the pieces of him?

 

Victoria turned around and saw her brother at the door. “Hey, don’t just stand there, I could use a hand here”, she said and asked Robert to do the cutlery for the table. She smiled fondly when Robert started to look for the things. It really was shameful that he still hadn’t got a clue where all the kitchenware was, even though he had lived under the roof for months now. He never cooked, he could barely boil the water. “Useless”, Victoria sighed amused. “Don’t laugh at me”, Robert said in an offended voice, but laughing too. “Vic”, he then said, “it’s going to be okay, you know, no matter what.” “I know”, she said, “I have faith in you two”. The brown eyes met the green eyes with firmness that was so reassuring. And Robert had thought she was the one panicking, how wrong had he been.

 

“The thing is Robert, I know there’s more to it than you’ve both told me. And I don’t expect miracles: this is just a lunch. A lunch. We sit down, we eat, we have a little conversations about things that don’t really matter anything to any of us. We have a gossip about other people’s lives, we might even laugh a little. And that’s it.”

 

“And then Andy goes home, you help me clean up, and we don’t need to discuss it through -unless you want to, of course. And we continue our lives. But we took the first step. It’s a long run, we’re not in a hurry. This is just a lunch.”

 

And she leaned into a hug to Robert’s arms, and although she was tiny and he was huge, he felt that she was holding him, and not the other way round. Precious girl, a mind reader. They heard the bell ring and Victoria looked into Robert’s eyes, the last piece of calming down. She smiled at him and walked to the front door. As Robert heard her opening the door, he took a deep breath and took a better posture. He could do this, he wanted to.

 

“Oh, Andy, you came just on the right time”, he heard her say, “I told Robert to do the cutlery, but you know how useless he is. I could use a little help here in the kitchen, if you don’t mind”.

 

Victoria returned to the kitchen with Andy, who was seemingly nervous as he smiled awkwardly with tight lips. “Hi”, said Robert and nodded, “I really am useless in the kitchen, she’s not lying. Do you know where the steak knives are?” Andy gave a nod and moved to the drawer, happy to have some occupy.

 

“The roast is ready!”, Victoria announced when she looked into the oven and pulled the meat out.

 

“Looks perfect”, said Andy.

 

“Smells good too”, continued Robert, and Victoria gave them a very proud smile.

 

“Let’s eat then, shall we?”


End file.
